John Domini: Movieola!

Our Actress in a Leading Role, I’ll tell you, I think it broke her. Our Project of the Dead, staggering from turnaround to turnaround, I think it sent her permanently back to music. Then again, this new CD of hers, it could be that she felt she owed it to the musicians. She’d brought some studio rats in on the project, pasty white LA creatures. It could be she felt she owed them, after all the time they lost working out first the school songs, then the National Anthems. No sooner did they get one down than they had to learn another.

Last call? Why, where’s my head, that I didn’t notice it was last call?

Brotherman, listen, here’s the thing. Your project, I love it, it’s action and character and one money shot after another, and if I were King of the Freeway, this’d be an automatic green light. That’s how the story should end. That’s one player to another. But. When you’re in there making your pitch, if you need an extra wrinkle, you might take a look at that Mars Rover. You might want to see if you’ve got some stretch there, in the arc of the Rover—considering who’s running the bank. This time we’re pitching an alien culture. Alien bank.

I mean, Galaxy M31, that’s a long way for a Flexxie to travel. Even when he’s got his “gravitational influence” working, it’s a long way to come. But our E.T., on first contact, he broke into the Industry. What’s that about? He can manipulate the laws of gravity and the first thing he tries, what—it’s our thing? One of those bus tours, the Hollywood Hills, “Map of the Stars”?

That’s what you ought to think about.

I know you know the same as we all know about this. About the Flexxies, I mean, and how they’ve got to have drama. Drama, for them, it’s a craving. It’s their nutrition, it’s their addiction, and I know you know that’s not just the Industry talking. That’s NASA. That’s research, what was it—eight months? Nothing but very serious people in smocks. But what I’m telling you is, you’re not going to need a smock, not after tonight.

Tomorrow you’re going in there knowing the Flexxies better than anyone. You’re going in knowing my project. The project, and what really happened with it—the way they were messing with us.

See, it’s all about this Flexxies “influence,” gravitational influence. It’s all about what that meant they could mess with down on Earth. They had the influence, and they needed the drama—and so they created it. They stirred up what little they could. Mini-quotidian drama. They gave the ball some funny bounces.

Think about it. What they did on my project, a spin here and a bobble there, budging the ball a fraction of a fraction of an inch. But then, brotherman—then think about what you and I can do.

I mean, this influence they’ve got, couldn’t you or I have developed the same? We could’ve done it easy. But we came equipped with better, with hands and feet, plus a tongue. These poor strange animules, way out here in the dark, you might say they’re all tongue. Myself, I like to think they’re all wand, one long wand. Invertebrate—flexible, mos def. Still, for a wand, they’re short on magic. They’re a one-trick Flexxie, manipulating gravity, and that only just enough to put the wrong team in the winner’s circle. Sometimes. Not even the smocks can say how long they were at it, contenting themselves with that kind of kidstuff, before they managed to poke out a few words on a keyboard.

Sentient beings. Contenting themselves with kidstuff.

You think about that, tomorrow, what you and I can do. The funkified narrative. The jeopardy and surprise. The slow burn, spin and rinse, startle and moil and vivify. Listen, that sports movie, my project? These days, one player to another, I’ve got no hard feelings. Naw. That’s the job, it’s supposed to get serendipitous on you, it’s supposed to every once in a while put all of echoing creation through the spin and rinse. I mean, the Flexxies, they’re amateurs. They came to us—you know, the Americans. They knew what it took to get our attention too. A trip like tonight, I’ll tell you, I’d never do it without some very serious seed money.

And it’s all according to Guild regulations. Travel, meals, and entertainment.

A blank wall, I ask you—how’s a girl supposed to act against a blank wall? How’s she supposed to brandish a sword and growl an imprecation, when all she’s facing is a big square sound-absorbent nothing?

Alya realized she worked in the Dream Factory. She was hanging in, at any rate, and long familiar with the improbabilities of the business, such as fighting to the death in club lipstick. Such as this soft-porn version of the Ionic chiton ( KIY -tuhn, insisted the dialogue coach, KIY -tuhn). Years ago, on her first project, Alya had learned to brandish her cleavage as well as a weapon, give the fanboys what they want, even the S-&-M tease of struggling in chains (latex, no heavier than one of her kid’s toys). But for this project she had to work with a wall . A convincing scream could be an actress’s worst challenge, people didn’t understand, but the only threat before her was the shadow of an X, a crosshairs projected on beige matte, a placeholder for a monster. X marks the monster—and this when the fear was supposed to be primal. The ogres under development, over in CGI, were supposed to loom up out of our muckiest pre-rational sediments. Out of the dawn of Western Civ.

Alya had every right to know where the killing blow might come from. She had every right to plausible fight choreography, even if it meant taking time from the shooting schedule. Her director, however, handled her as if he wasn’t much more than a fanboy himself. One silver-tongued devil of a fanboy: An actress of your caliber , he’d murmur, of your stature …all beside the point, especially when you considered that flattery was in the job description for a director. His sweet nothings included the project’s tagline for the press: Part nanotech 3-D action-adventure, part date-night, chick-friendly .

Okay, but Alya was the chick in question, she could still play nubile, hanging in, and a week into shooting she got her director to admit he hadn’t read the book. Come on, he grumped, an adaptation. Okay, but if he’d known the original he could’ve provided a clearer sense of the dangers facing Alya and her romantic lead—and that guy was no help either. Seven years younger, a former Disney androgyne buffed up for the role, her co-star remained a cuddle-toy. In skirt and sandals, no less. A week into shooting, she had no option except to exercise what was left of her star power.

CGI lay just across the lot. Felt like another planet, granted, a world in which the sentient beings bore only a rough resemblance, pocked and untucked, to the men on her side of the galaxy. The nerd who opened the “Odd-eyes” file for Alya was just such an otherworldly creature, his comb apparently mistaken for a garden tool, plus this Zachary couldn’t hide his crush on her. He couldn’t even begin to hide it, his stare like the full moon, and beneath the moon curved its golden reflection, his wedding ring. You couldn’t help but notice the ring, the poor guy didn’t know what to do with his hands, and for a moment there the actress worried that the studio’s go-cart had carried her back to high school. Was she going to wind up contending with an octopus, all grope and nibble? But as Zachary tweaked his software preferences, he regained his motor control, and Alya could suss out how, here on the Planet of the Function Keys, this get-together was a demonstration of his power. His wonkpower. She knew an invidious look when she saw one, and hadn’t she seen more than one here in the labs, sharp looks, transparently invidious? The Morlocks had spun on their stools to watch her pass.